Maize is a first-person adventure puzzle game that takes place in the middle of an abandoned corn maze and the hidden government base underneath it. With your interesting new friend you meet in the game called Vlad, a walking teddy bear with a Russian accent, you find yourself helping the most unusual of allies. With a partial post-it note propelled story line and more corny humour then you can lend your ear to, you'll find yourself enjoying both the puzzles and visuals of this game.

Finish Line Games is both the developer and the publisher of Maize and released it on December 1st, 2016,Steam. The game only features single player but with the option to go back to different chapters if you want to replay certain parts of the game. The game is equipped with the option for both gamepad and mouse/keyboard. Meaning you can play with whichever you feel most comfortable. At the time of writing this Maize does not have a product rating. Based on a full play through I would say the game is not appropriate for children due it featuring some violence as well as some bad language.

The requirements of the game are not demanding. You're going to need Windows 7, or above, the minimum processor required is a dual-core Intel or AMD, 2.0 GHz or higher, while the recommended is at 3.0 GHz or higher. Required minimum memory is at 4 GB of ram with the recommended at 8, with a few tabs and other windows open I found myself maxing at around 6.5 to 7 GB of ram usage with all the settings set to max for this game. For graphics, you're looking for a min of a GeForce 460 GTX or equivalent with a 760 GTX recommended. You're going to need DirectX version 11 to play it and 11GB of storage space to install the game.

I enjoyed the visuals of the game, and for an Indie game, I think they did reasonably well. During certain parts of the game, there were some lighting issues caused by the setting sun which took away from the immersion. This has an impact on both the corn fields and underground sections. The audio is well balanced ensuring aspects of the soundscape are not obnoxious or disproportionate. The developers have appropriately used music, ambient noise and the character's voice to enhance the experience and the atmospheric element of the game.

The game does a fairly decent job with objects that are rendered in the distance, but there is some room for improvements. I only found one glitch in my play through of the game, but you had to go into a specific corner a specific way, however, if you closed the game and reopened it you were not stuck anymore. The game gives you a wide choice when it comes to visual and audio options. Overall it wasn't that intensive on my computer, and I was able to play it with ease.

The plot of the game was fun, and I found myself laughing at several parts of the game thanks to interactions between you and a few characters in the game or the interactions between the characters themselves. Some of the puzzles were easy to figure out while others had me sitting there for several minutes trying to figure out how to do it. More often than not puzzles take a traditional format with the need to hunt out a particular object to interact with something else to enable progress. There was nothing particularly innovative or novel about the puzzle aspect of the game. At times I had situations where I was trying to find any possible items I may have missed in the environment in an attempt to try to solve the puzzles the place of some objects was not where I expected them to be. The story of the game was fluid, and I didn't have any issues following it, and only got lost in the game once or twice in regards to what I had to do next. One thing I did notice however was the game deliberately blocking off sections of the map and forcing me in a fixed direction by using very unsubtle barriers. This could have been handled better. It took me little over 3 hours to get through the game and beat it. If you wanted to look through everything and wanted to find all the items in the game, then I can easily see this taking more than 5 hours to play. With the option to go back to any chapter it makes finding the items a tad bit easier.

Overall I'd have to say I had a very enjoyable time playing this game and can see myself playing through it again. I would rate this game an 87/100 and would highly recommend this game to people who enjoy adventure, puzzle, or good-humoured games. Main reasons why I wouldn't give it a higher score is because of the one or two bugs I found including the lighting issues, flow is poor in some parts, and the story writing could have been better in some areas, but the humour is really what holds this game together.